The Musashi Flex Read Online Free PDF Page A

moment, but sooner or later, he would. A few years back, Mourn had really liked to mix it up; he fought three or four times a month when he could find players worth his effort, though he had been quiet lately. If she could stay with him, she’d get a capper for the documentary, almost certainly.
    She watched him pass by, a clear plastic tube with a pair of flexsoles in it under his arm. He didn’t appear to be paying any attention to his surroundings, but she knew better than that. You didn’t get to be among the most expert hand-to-hand fighters in the galaxy by sleepwalking. She would have to be very careful following him, else he’d spot her pretty quick.
    She had an edge. She had spent three weeks learning sub-rosa surveillance techniques from Carl “The Shadow” Denali, an expert security agent formerly with Confederation Intelligence and now in the private sector, who, it was said, could track a black gnat at midnight in a sootstorm. We’re So Glad Entertainment, for whom she had been working at the time, had paid for the course—she’d have never been able to afford it, and it had been worth it as far she had been concerned. She had gotten footage of several dirty pols using that training, crooked politicians being one of We’re So Glad’s prime exposé subjects. Fortunately, after they had parted company, Denali’s training was hers to continue using. They could take your company ID chit, but they couldn’t take what was inside your head. Not yet, anyway.
    You could, Denali had taught the class, secretly tail a man who checked to see if he was being followed—if you were very careful. Sola had practiced the techniques dozens of times since she’d learned them, seeing what worked and what didn’t, and she had gotten pretty good at it, so she figured. A lot of it had to do with attitude. You had to be focused in such a way that the subject couldn’t feel you watching him. You had to be elsewhere when he looked for a tail. He looked behind himself, you needed to be across the street; he looked across the street, you needed to be in front of him; he looked in front of himself, you needed to be behind him. You had to dope out his patterns before he spotted you, and if you could, he wouldn’t know you were there.
    She allowed Mourn to get twenty meters ahead, then she angled across the street to parallel him.
    The first time he checks, it’ll be behind him, Denali had taught her. It’s almost instinctive. If he doesn’t see anything there that trips an alarm, next he’ll look to the sides. Then if he’s savvy, he’ll scope any pedestrians or vehicles in front of him. You need to be one shift ahead of him all the time. And the tricky part is, you need to be able to rotate it randomly, because he won’t look back, sideways, and to the front sequentially after the first time, he’ll mix it up. But a good shadow will figure out what he is going to do before he does it. It’s a skill, an art. It takes constant practice . . .
    She grinned to herself. Jesu knew she had done enough of that. When you were a freelance investigative journalist in a very competitive market, you either got good at what you did or you went on the dole. So far, Sola had managed to keep from having to do that. This guy was canny, and he’d be alert, but he was just a man. Put his pants on one leg at a time like everybody else did. She could do this. She would do it—and if she pulled it off, it would help make her rep. The woman who tracks professional killers. Cayne Sola, ghost-at-large, the wraith, the invisible girl . . .
    It was all in your attitude.
    Yeah, well, if you are so hot, how come those two dim-bulb midthirties-ranked Flexers back in the alley spotted you, hmm?
    She shook her head. A fluke. They had been so easy to tail, she had relaxed too much, that was all. Probably they had heard her when she did the cam command was all.
    Uh-huh. Sure.
    Okay, fine. She’d be more careful.
    She moved her position several times